The present invention relates to a system for the storage and transportation of anti-matter and to a method for filling or emptying a storage container for anti-matter with the aid of the same.
So-called anti-matter has virtually everything in common with matter, specifically mass, energy, its behavior when it is exposed to electric or magnetic or gravitational fields, the presence of electric charges, but not the polarity of the so-called elementary charge. A piece of anti-matter which corresponds approximately to an electron would therefore not, for example, have a negative elementary charge, but a positive elementary charge. Thus, for example, hydrogen has a proton as nucleus and an electron in its electron shell, whereas so-called anti-hydrogen has an anti-proton in its nucleus, which has a negative electric charge, and has around this a so-called positron, which has a positive elementary charge, instead of the electron. In the case of heavier elements than hydrogen, this system is continued, and the nuclei of molecules are therefore always negatively charged and the so-called xe2x80x9cpositron shellsxe2x80x9d, that is to say the positively charged shells which correspond to the electron shell in the case of matter, are positively charged.
The detection of small quantities of anti-matter, that is to say a few countable elementary particles, is based on their ability to be deflected by electric or magnetic forces. If anti-matter is neither electrically charged, that is to say is electrically neutral, nor can be attracted or repelled by a magnetic field, that is to say is magnetically neutral, it can be handled only with difficulty on Earth or in space in regions where matter prevails, since it is very quickly neutralized by material particles colliding with it, and is thereafter no longer present.
The present invention therefore relates, in particular, to anti-matter which is either electrically charged or is not magnetically neutral.
An anti-proton and a positron were first combined to form so-called anti-hydrogen in 1995. Production thereof requires the exact cooperation of a plurality of accelerators such as, for example, the CERN accelerators. Firstly, protons are accelerated in linear accelerators, boosters and proton synchrotrons (PS) to 27 GeV.
These protons strike a heavy target. Many particle/anti-particle pairs are produced in the collision of the protons with the target nuclei, including proton/anti-proton pairs in specific cases. Some of the anti-protons are captured in an anti-proton cooler (AC) and stored in the anti-proton accumulator. From there, they are fed from time to time into the low-energy anti-proton ring (LEAR) where they are available for experiments.
A different avenue is taken for producing anti-matter in-the PS210 experiment of the CERN accelerator: when an anti-proton circulating in the accelerator passes very closely by a so-called target nucleus, for example the element xenon, electron-positron pairs are produced xe2x80x9cfrom time to timexe2x80x9d. If an anti-proton captures a positron, which very seldom happens, anti-hydrogen is produced.
Progress in the production of anti-matter is prompting the creation of systems which can store this anti-matter. A further cause of the necessity of such systems is the fact that the existence of anti-matter in space is presumed. Of course, there is the need to capture such anti-matter from space in order to be able to analyze it scientifically, or keep it ready for other purposes. Thus, the US shuttle Discovery could, inter alia, be searching for anti-matter in space on its flight planned for the beginning of June 1998. An on-board alpha magnet spectrometer (AMS) can carry out appropriate measurements to detect anti-matter. This instrument can, inter alia, detect anti-helium and anti-carbon nuclei if these particles are electrically charged. The detection method is based on the deflection of moving, electric charges in a magnetic field.
It is clear from the foregoing description that systems for the storage and transportation of anti-matter will possibly be required in the near future. It follows from a NASA Internet publication of May, June 1999 at http://members.inic.com/amiga/monats-thema-april99.html that such a storage system has a tubular structure whose lateral surface is formed by a magnet having an inlet opening and an outlet opening, in each case on the top surface or bottom surface of the cylinder.
The crucial problem that has to be solved in the storage of anti-matter consists in the anti-matter being kept in the interior of the container irrespective of whatever state it may be present in, for example electrically charged or electrically neutral or ferromagnetically or magnetically neutral, without coming into contact with the material of the wall of the container. Such a contact would otherwise immediately convert the anti-matter into matter, in which case large quantities of energy would be released with the attendant risk in principle of destroying the container in the process.
A further important boundary condition for the storage and transportation of anti-matter in such a container is that the interior of the container is evacuated in an extreme way in order to prevent reactions of the anti-matter with air constituents present in the interior of the container.
The anti-matter accommodated in the NASA storage system is distributed in a rotationally symmetrical fashion about the cylinder axis in the desired state. The anti-matter is kept on this axis in a more or less stable state by the magnetic field, whose field strength distribution can be electronically controlled.
A disadvantage of this storage system is that the anti-matter can be displaced in the longitudinal direction relative to the top surface or bottom surface of the cylinder. This can have a disadvantageous effect when the container is, for example, subjected to specific, unforeseen accelerations during transportation.
The risk exists in this case of the anti-matter being displaced along the central axis and reacting with the matter of the top surface or base surface and being destroyed in the process.
One object of the present invention consists in creating a container for anti-matter which is designed such that the position of the anti-matter in its interior does not change even when the above-mentioned accelerations occur.
In accordance with another aspect, a further object of the present invention consists in designing the proposed container in such a way that it manages essentially without a magnetic field.
A further object consists in filling or emptying the proposed container.
The said objects of the invention are achieved by means of the features named in the attached claims. Advantageous developments representing the further aspect of the invention follow from the respective subclaims.
The basic idea of the invention consists in creating a spherically symmetrical arrangement instead of the cylindrical geometry proposed by NASA, although in this case it is immediately evident to the person skilled in the art that an arrangement for filling such a sphere disturbs the spherical symmetry of the force field present in the interior.
This difficulty is solved by an arrangement, proposed according to the invention, of closable openings in the spherical shell.
In accordance with a first exemplary embodiment, it is proposed according to the invention to construct a highly evacuable spherical container for the storage of anti-matter, which is hollow on the inside and whose spherical shell is assembled from individual segments which contribute to the generation of a force field in the interior of the sphere. In a particularly preferred way, the segments are juxtaposed in a tiling fashion so that irregularities on the inner wall of the sphere are as slight as possible.
In accordance with one exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the spherical shell segments generate a magnetic field which keeps electrically charged or magnetic anti-particles in the center of the sphere.
In accordance with a further, particularly preferred exemplary embodiment, the spherical shell segments generate in the interior of the sphere an electrostatic field which keeps electrically charged anti-matter in a stable position in a fashion centered about the center of the sphere. This is attended by the particular advantage that the control of the spherical shell segments is much less complicated, since a stable equilibrium is achieved per se when the electric polarity of the spherical wall is the same as the polarity of the anti-matter stored in the interior of the sphere. The repulsive forces generated by the respective charges have the effect that the anti-matter is kept stably in the interior of the sphere.
The openings according to the invention for filling or emptying the spherical container are defined in that their geometry and arrangement and the geometry and arrangement of closing parts for the openings are such that they are matched to the force field of the spherical shell and permit an unstable or stable equilibrium of the anti-matter as continuously as possible during the filling or emptying into or out of the spherical container.
An essential characteristic of the arrangement of the closing parts consists in that during filling they can be kept equidistant from one another and, keeping the anti-matter between them, can be introduced from outside through the spherical shell into the interior of the shell through a first opening, and can be brought into a stable final position in which the sphere is closed and the force field is uniform enough to keep the anti-matter in the interior of the sphere.